Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th December: An invite to speak at the Canterbury Climate Action Partnership Climate Action Festival.

Still the weather continues to slow us down or keep us away from the garden with yet more rain.

We did enjoy a little sunshine on the Wednesday morning session where we were able to barrow some fresh compost onto the asparagus beds, clear some leaves out of the pond, and begin to check the brassica patches for yellowing lower leaves so that they can be removed.  We then picked some winter salad as well as a few leeks before packing away the tools for the day.  Unfortunately on Saturday it was raining quite hard and so the morning session was cancelled once again. 

Luckily we were not to be left idle that day as there was an invite to speak at the CCAP (Canterbury Climate Action Partnership) Climate Action Festival in Canterbury, about one of our very favourite topics – compost!  In particular, they were most interested in our new hot composter which came last week, and it seems that when it is finally up and running, producing plenty of compost, then we shall be getting visits from several organisations keen to find out how they work.

There were enquiries from community gardens as well as Parish councillors, keen to investigate if such composters could be useful to their locations.  In the meantime we might have to start thinking about how we can go about getting funds for another one!

What’s next?

• Empty out the compost bay onto empty beds or under the brassicas

• Clear the nasturtium plants affected by the frost

• Clear the flowered nicotiana plants

• Move any cerinthe seedlings creeping into the path

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd December: The proud owners of a fantastic hot composter.

December has arrived and it certainly fells like it has too with a biting wind and freezing temperatures.  The rainfall for November was 183.6mm, so just as massive as it was for October.  The clay soil at Pent farm is swimming in water except for where there has been plenty of compost added, but happily Enbrook Park copes with it all very well. 

On Wednesday morning we managed to dodge the rain and get in an hour or two at the main Sandgate garden, sorting out some of the fleece over the beds, tidying and picking some green winter salad.   The rose hedge got a good pruning, as did the spent growth of the asparagus beds.  On Saturday it was decided that it was too cold for our usual gardening session, with temperatures below zero for most of the morning meaning that the ground would have been frozen and most of the plants would not have appreciated any disturbance either.  Cars were spotted in Sandgate with a covering of snow, so it was clear that the white stuff is not all that far away from us.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday a couple of us took delivery of a fantastic hot composter at Folkestone College.  This particular day had been a long time coming, and was a result of speaking at the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum way back in May, then putting in an application for funding to buy a composter.  We won the bid, and after lots of negotiating and organisation, the day finally came when it was in our possession.

Folkestone College has kindly offered us a composting space within their grounds, and once we are all satisfied with arrangements, we will be ready to get going and shall be busy making compost; not from green waste from the gardens which we already do, but from food waste.  It has to be remembered that cooked food cannot be composted in exactly the same way as waste from the garden or kitchen peelings, and this amazing composter is just the thing to be able to tackle it.  It requires no electricity, just a bit of muscle power to turn a handle, and the input of wood shavings/chips or sawdust, which Folkestone College has in quantity.  When the first of the food waste goes into the composter it will take a mere two to three weeks for it to appear at the other end in the form of raw compost.  Raw compost still needs to be matured before it can be used on the gardens, but by going through the composter it will have been mixed with the sawdust/wood shavings/wood chips and have naturally heated up to high enough temperatures to kill off any harmful pathogens.

There is a great deal of work for us to do, and much for us to learn before we can be confident we are making the sort of compost we are looking to be producing, but it is a start, and we will not be sure of the results for some months to come.  However we can now make a start and hopefully be able to encourage more people to compost with us, or maybe even to support us in securing more funding to build up a series of such composting devices.  Now that really would be something!

What’s next?

• Still need to turnout the conventional compost bins

• Put compost over the cleared asparagus beds

• Use fishing net to clear some leaves out of the pond

• Check brassicas for pigeon damage/ remove old leaves

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.